The present disclosure generally relates to motor drives, and more particularly to the use of switched mode power supplies in motor drives.
Electric motors and motor drives are generally used throughout industrial, commercial, material handling, process and manufacturing settings, to mention only a few. For example, in a manufacturing setting, a motor drive may provide drive power to an electric motor used to move a load, such as a conveyer belt, fan, or any other machine. A typical motor drive employed with a single or three phase induction motor utilizes power from the power grid, and performs power conversion to produce output power with desired current, voltage, or frequency characteristics. More specifically, control circuitry may control operation of the motor drive to output power with the desired characteristics.
To facilitate operation of the control circuitry, a switched mode power supply may supply power to the control circuitry as well as other components, such as safety circuitry, driver circuitry, protection circuitry, or auxiliary circuitry. Generally, a switched mode power supply may include a single control loop that controls the electrical power (e.g., voltage or current) output by the switched mode power supply. For example, when the switched mode power supply utilizes a flyback converter, a switch may be included on the primary side of the flyback converter to control the electrical power output by the switched mode power supply by controlling the amount of electrical energy stored in the primary side. Moreover, the structure of a switched mode power supply is generally fixed. For example, when the switched mode power supply utilizes a flyback converter, the number of windings on the primary side and the number of windings on the secondary side may be fixed. In other words, the electrical power output by the switched mode power supply is generally fixed to operation of the primary side.
Accordingly, it would beneficial to improve the flexibility of operation of a switched mode power supply by increasing the amount of control over the electrical power output by a switched mode power supply. For example, increasing the amount of control over the output electrical power may enable structurally identical switched mode power supplies to be utilized in different motor drives.